The Definitive Shroud of Turin FAQ

What does it mean that the vanillin in the shroud is fully depleted?

This chart shows the age-related data about the depletion of
vanillin
from the lignin of the flax fibers. The nearly complete depletion at various
ambient temperatures indicates that the Shroud is certainly much older than
the carbon dating derived range of dates: 1260 to 1390.

We frequently see references to the fact that
Raymond Rogers asserted that the cloth was
between 1300 and 3000 years old. This is the basis for those numbers. We
can see that if the average ambient storage temperatures of the cloth
had been less than 73 °F, the cloth would be at least 2000 years
old. How much older is impossible to know from this chemical analysis:

Average Storage Temperature
Equating to Constant in Celsius

Average Storage Temperature
Equating to Constant in Fahrenheit

Age Indicated by a
conservative 95% loss of Vanillin

25 °C

77 °F

1319 Years

23 °C

73 °F

1845 Years

20 °C

68 °F

3095 Years

From the paper in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Thermochimica Acta:

A linen produced
in A.D. 1260 would have retained
about 37% of its vanillin in 1978. The Raes threads, the Holland
cloth [shroud's backing cloth], and all other medieval linens
gave the test for vanillin wherever lignin could be observed on
growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of vanillin from
the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than the
radiocarbon laboratories reported."

A medieval cloth, created between 1260 to 1390 would have retained about 40%
of its vanillin. Clearly the Shroud of Turin is not medieval.